Teaching Skills Assessment in Initial Teacher Training in Physical Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article shows great scientific and writing quality to be published, so we only propose the following improvements:
Put out the meaning of MEF and CAFYD
Make reference to the way in which the informed consent of the participants was carried out
Add pages to bibliographic references that do not have them.

Author Response

Dear editor,

Through this letter, the authors of the article respond to the proposals made by the evaluators to improve it. First, we want to thank your work as editor and the work of the reviewers. Thanks to the recommendations made, we believe that the document has substantially improved in its conceptualization proposal and in the methodological explanation and empirical analysis.

We appreciate the comments, suggestions, and insights provided by both reviewers and the editor, as their guidance has helped to clarify both the structure and content of the manuscript.

Next, we detail the changes that have been made in relation to each of the suggestions received by the editor.

Reviewer 1: put out the meaning of MEF and CAFYD

The presence of "MEF, CAFyD" has been reviewed and corrected, applying "PEPTE" and "PASS" as the case may be throughout the entire document.

Reviewer 1: Make reference to the way in which the informed consent of the participants was carried out

Information on the way in which the informed consent of the participants was carried out is incorporated in the Procedure section:

Page 3 Procedure: “Furthermore, the ethical rigor was guaranteed as established by the Ethics Committee of the researchers’ university. Also, an informed consent form was signed by all participants, who, in turn, were not only informed, verbally and in writing, about the purposes and the procedure of the study, but also were ensured anonymity and that the data would exclusively be used for the purposes of the investigation.”

Reviewer 1: Add pages to bibliographic references that do not have them.

The page numbers of some bibliographic references are corrected (3, 4, 5, 8, 17, 24, 28, 37, 40, 61)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

the paper presented an  assessment that meet the interest of a restrict cohort of teachers (Spain area).

the flow of the introduction must be re-write to re-write the readability

in general the extend version must be before the acronimous

some confusion for the association about ITTPE, PASS, G1 and G2, MEF and CAFYD are not clear for the readers.

the value about reliability and validity of the questionnaire are lack.

why the questionnaire was reduced? it keep the validity?

G1 and G2 must be declared before the results section

in the first analysis the differences between percentage are not evaluated with inferential analysis

usually the bold style is not a way to highlight important values

the results section could follow the order of the items putted in tables (items 1.2; 1.3...)

in discussion section a brief re-cup of the study is important

the discussion is focused only on the third part of the analysis

in conclusion section, in my opinion, it is important underlying the lacks of the university degrees with specific indication

reference:

the references 10, 43, 54 and 63 are old for a scientific communication

over than 30 references are in spanish journal and is not so world wide for scientific community

Author Response

Dear editor,

Through this letter, the authors of the article respond to the proposals made by the evaluators to improve it. First, we want to thank your work as editor and the work of the reviewers. Thanks to the recommendations made, we believe that the document has substantially improved in its conceptualization proposal and in the methodological explanation and empirical analysis.

We appreciate the comments, suggestions, and insights provided by both reviewers and the editor, as their guidance has helped to clarify both the structure and content of the manuscript.

Next, we detail the changes that have been made in relation to each of the suggestions received by the editor.

Reviewer 2. Extensive editing of English language and style required

The entire document has been thoroughly revised and corrected, incorporating changes that guarantee reading and meaning in English.

Reviewer 2: the paper presented an  assessment that meet the interest of a restrict cohort of teachers (Spain area).

The World Conference on Higher Education (UNESCO, 2009) reiterated the need to adapt Higher Education to the knowledge society. Professional competences are the instrument that enables higher educational institutions to connect training with social demands and the business world, bringing the design of training programs closer to those socio-labor needs. The study shows certain results about a research and innovation project funded by the Spanish government that tries to evaluate the skills training of physical education teachers in the Spanish university context. It should also be considered that the dissemination of the results of this research may contribute to the implementation of similar ones, of a comparative nature, in the European context.

Reviewer 2: the flow of the introduction must be re-write to re-write the readability

The meaning of the introduction has been revised and modified:

Page 1 paragraph 1. “After the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), new teacher training programs related to skills development were designed. In this regard, Spain created two new university degrees for the initial teacher training in Physical Education (ITTPE) in order to be more consistent with the existing European ones [3]: one was a degree in Primary Education Teacher Degree (6-12 years old students), with special mention in Physical Education (PETPE); the other degree was in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (PASS) for 12-16 year-old students  [1,2]. The first one prioritized training contents with a play-based approach, whereas the other was rooted on sport-oriented contents. According to Palacios-Picos et al. [4], the first studies on ITTPE took a technocratic perspective derived from the Competency-Based Teacher Education model, which, in turn, prioritized skills development [5-9]. Consequently, was deemed necessary to assess (a) to what extent the new teacher training programs where having an impact on future teachers’ teaching skills and (b) the differences between both degrees. This study is justified on the basis that its results and conclusions may contribute to the enhancement of similar programs ones within the European context.”.

Reviewer 2: in general the extend version must be before the acronimous

This aspect has been reviewed and corrected.

Reviewer 2: some confusion for the association about ITTPE, PASS, G1 and G2, MEF and CAFYD are not clear for the readers.

These aspects are reviewed and corrected throughout the document.

Reviewer 2: the value about reliability and validity of the questionnaire are lack.

The following information regarding the reliability and validity of the questionnaire has been included in the Instrumentssection:

Page 4 paragraph 2: “The process reaching validity and reliability was as follows: The internal consistency of the four subscales and of the total score was verified using Cronbach's alpha coefficients for ordinal data and McDonald's omega. Overall, an ordinal alpha value of .95, and an omega value of .91, were obtained. Both values were considered excellent. Regarding the first subscale, relative to organization, design and planning, good internal consistency indices were obtained (α = .87, ω = .87). Regarding the second subscale, relative to the contents, adequate reliability indices were obtained as well (α = .84, ω = .86). Similarly, good internal consistency indices were shown for both the third subscale, relative to the methodology (α = .86, ω = .86) and the fourth scale, related to evaluation (α = .76, ω = .75). Finally, the factorial structure proposed for the questionnaire was ratified and the fit indices were considered adequate (RMSEA = .052, 95% CI [.048 - .056], CFI = 0.975, p (RMSEA < .05 = .239)”

Reviewer 2: why the questionnaire was reduced? it keep the validity?

Items were removed after review of expert judgment and after a group interview with the experts. Items whose meaning could generate problems or understanding errors were eliminated. Based on all the reviews and evaluations provided, the questionnaire was revised and a new version of it was obtained, composed of 22 items, which was considered the final scale. The panel of experts considered that these 22 items were sufficient, relevant, and representative of the construct, which was considered sufficient evidence on the validity of the content.

Reviewer 2: G1 and G2 must be declared before the results section

Page 4 paragraph 4: “And, finally, after verifying the scale’s factorial invariance, differences in latent means across groups were analyzed. To this end, they were fixed to zero for the PETPE’s student group (G1) and freely estimated for the PASS’s student group (G2)”.

Reviewer 2: in the first analysis the differences between percentage are not evaluated with inferential analysis

The following information regarding inferential analysis has been included in the results section:

Page 5 paragraph 1: “After checking the homogeneity of the variances using the Levene test, the differences between groups were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon tests. The results indicated that none of the differences were statistically significant.”.

Page 5 paragraph 4: “The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests indicated that PETPE students perceived that the subjects taken had contributed to developing the competency to know psychomotor development (item 1.5) (Mdn = 3) to a greater extent than PASS students ( Mdn = 2) (Z = 5.26, p <.001, r = .16). In the same way, PETPE students also considered that the subjects taken had contributed to developing the competency to know and understand the bodily and motor evolutionary processes (item 1.18) to a significantly higher degree than PASS students (Z = 3.59 , p <.001, r = .11). On the contrary, PASS students considered that the subjects taken had contributed to developing the competencies to know the physical capacities and the factors that determine their evolution and to know how to apply their specific technical foundations (item 1.6) (Md = 3) and to know the biological and physiological foundations of the human body in relation to physical activity (item 1.7) (Md = 3) to a significantly higher degree than PETPE students (item 1.6, Md = 2, Z = 2.71, p <. 001, r = .08) (item 1.7, Md = 2, Z = 7.29, p <.001, r = .21). There were no significant differences between the two groups with regard to the competency to know and promote the different motor manifestations that are part of your traditional culture (item 1.4, Z = 1.11, p = .263, r = .03)”

Page 6 paragraph 4: “To check whether these differences are statistically significant, the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests were applied again. The results of these tests indicated that the differences between groups are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level in items 1.8 (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 2, Z = 7.54, p <.001, r = .022); Item 1.9 (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 3, Z = 2.67, p = .007, r = .079); Item 1.12 (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 3, Z = 4.61, p <.001, r = .137); and item 1.13 (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 2, Z = 2.45, p = .014, r = .073). The differences in item 1.15 were not statistically significant (MdG1 = 2, MdG2 = 2, Z = .08, p = .931, r = .002).

Page 7 paragraph 2: “The results of the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests indicated that the differences between groups are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level in items 1.10 (MdG1 = 2, MdG2 = 2, Z = 2.05, p = .039, r = .061); Item 1.21 (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 3, Z = 3.86, p <.001, r = .115); and item 1.22 (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 3, Z = 5.06, p <.001, r = .15). The differences in item 1.11 were not statistically significant (MdG1 = 3, MdG2 = 3, Z = .04, p = .964, r = .001).

Reviewer 2: usually the bold style is not a way to highlight important values

Bold styling has been removed from tables

Reviewer 2: the results section could follow the order of the items putted in tables (items 1.2; 1.3...)

The items have been grouped according to the factor on which each one of them loads, and the results are presented according to the factors. The items in the questionnaire are not ordered so that presentation of results is not possible

Reviewer 2: in discussion section a brief re-cup of the study is important

A brief summary is incorporated based on the objective of the study, trying to guide the direction of the discussion.

Page 9 paragraph 3: “With the creation of the EHEA, teaching and transversal competencies programs (ITTPEs) have been develop in Spain. This implies a change in the design of the purposes of these studies that obviously affects the rest of the programming elements. In the same way, a greater differentiation is created between the profile and training that Primary Education teachers receive through the PETPE degree and Secondary Education teaching through the PASS degree. In view of this, it was deemed necessary to analyze the assessment made by university students in Physical Education teaching, , regarding the impact of their respective degrees on the development of their teaching skills in four main content scopes: (a) manage the teaching-learning processes; (b) support physical and psychomotor development; (c) manage physical activities and learning content; (d) promote body hygiene and healthy habits.”.

Reviewer 2: the discussion is focused only on the third part of the analysis

Discussion information has been revised. It starts with the objective of the study considering the results of the research in its different parts, but it is necessary to delve into those specific data that allow knowing the relationship that exists between the training received by students and the development of their skills, evaluating the training model of the two degrees that structure the training of physical education teachers in the Spanish context.

Reviewer 2: in conclusion section, in my opinion, it is important underlying the lacks of the university degrees with specific indication

The conclusions are reviewed and the deficiencies of the university degrees with specific indication are incorporated.

Reviewer 2: the references 10, 43, 54 and 63 are old for a scientific communication

References are replaced 10, 43, 54, 63

Reviewer 2: over than 30 references are in spanish journal and is not so world wide for scientific community

The bibliographic references of Spanish journals are reviewed, keeping those essential for the object of study in the Spanish educational context and substituting various for international references (11, 29, 30, 32, 36, 38, 44, 45, 49, 55). All bibliographic references were also reviewed, adjusted and corrected.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is fine work and will contribute to the wider knowledge of the field.

• I may be unfamiliar with the style and formatting commonly used in this journal, but from my experience, most require that authors write out all the words then follow with the acronym in parenthesis after; like how is done in the first few sentences on page 1. For example:
• On page 1: “…take a technological perspective derived from the CBTE (Competency Based Teacher Education) model.” Should read: “…take a technological perspective derived from the Competency Based Teacher Education (CBTE) model.” No need for Italics.
• “Thereby Physical Education (PE) as a discipline does not take into account established bodies of knowledge, but parts of traditions, interests and trends shaping it.” I may not be understanding exactly what is meant by this. This is an interesting observation and perspective, if I am understanding correctly. I may argue that PE does, however, take into account the knowledge of such fields as kinesiology, anatomy, biomechanics, nutrition, and many others. Consider rephrasing for clarity.
• I’d like the authors to go into greater detail regarding motor sociocultural practices – what is the importance of such practices? What are examples?
• There are a number are areas where thee authors need to type out the full acronym before using it.
• Table 2 G2 data is cut off, must be reformatted to be visible for a full review.
• It would be useful to include the items of particular significance in an appendix for review.
• Why set the divergencies value at 5%? How did the authors arrive at that value?
• I'd like to see more focus on connecting findings to previous studies in-line, and perhaps introduce Occupational Socialization Theory into the results, as it seem to fit with your findings in many areas. This is a good review of the theory that may be worth your time: Richards, K. A. R, Pennington, C. G., & Sinelnikov, O. (2019). Teacher Socialization in Physical Education: A Scoping Review of Literature. Kinesiology Review.  8(2), 86-99. https://doi.org/10.1123/kr.2018-0003.
• The conclusion and discussion appear to be written by different authors from who wrote the literature review – the style and language just seems different. Consider revisiting the conclusion and discussion to write in a manner that matches the literature review.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

dear authors

I appreciated the hard work made to improve the readability of the survey.

the MS is new!

ragard